Divided they Fall
by Starlit Skyline
Summary: Rei wonders how long two little rabbits can survive in the middle of a forest infested with wolves. They can run, they can hide, they could cower or fight, but everyone met the same fate in the end - everyone died.


People lie, and it's a fact Rei has accepted long ago.

The wolves lied, the rabbits lied, even her parents lied. But there was one thing they all had in common - they all had someone they loved. But life is cruel and unforgiving and the world won't stop spinning just because a single individual wasn't able to follow. Time dragged them on unrelentingly.

Rei isn't a stranger to loss, or grief. She's the only one who doesn't lie. Her lips are sealed as only the ramblings of an innocent girl slip out - she leaves out the truth.

She knows how to pull the strings now, because she is neither wolf nor rabbit - if they were sheep, she'd figure she'd be a shepherd. Only her mission isn't to guard, it's to destroy. It's to destroy everything until just the hard, stone-cold truth is laid in front of everyone, presented in a way no one could ignore. Doubt was the thing that divided them. Suspicion was what they thought kept them safe - if they chose right, they would be saved - but it was also their doom. Truth would have made everything clear. Trust would have united the rabbits against the wolf - but, who to trust?

It was a game made of lies, after all. A game consisting of deceit, manipulation, distrust and chaos.

She always won.

When she started another round of her game, she hadn't expected it to be so interesting. The first two, Eiji and Haruko, were easy enough to kill. They were simple liars, rubbish of the streets that still had the skill to trick the unsuspecting. Still, tears slid down their cheeks when they realized their end, their mistakes.

Her wolves painted the walls red with the blood they spilled, "The liar must die" - but they were all liars, weren't they? One by one, divided and alone, they died. All of her victims were hung, because she wants to make an example of them, to let the others know - Tell the Truth before it's too late. No one sees the world her way.

Mitsuki is her new toy, the puppet whose strings are so easy to pull it's almost like she's an extension of Rei's own will. The perfect wolf. Hoyama Mitsuki is the newest addition to her pack, subordinate only to her alpha.

It was an interesting game, all in all.

A detective just as manipulative as her, a boy who trusted too much - they've both learned their lesson. Now, wherever they look, they will falter with doubt, hearing and imagining the lies. The naïve boy, who has learned so much yet changed so little, stays by his friends side - the prey guarding the predator, how ironic.

Komaba Hajime had lasted longer than was expected, with Yuu clinging on to his like a leach, like a lifeline. She grows tired of him, but he is still needed, for now, and only because the naïve boy wanted it - she could bend the rules a little, this was her game, after all.

Good intentions, perusing the puppet-master in order to cut her strings, was ultimately Hajime's doom. The naïve boy has sacrificed one to save the other, and now he has lost both.

It surprises Rei, however, that he has not lost himself. It hardly matters now, anyway, his end is near.

When she plays her puppet into the final stage of her game, a string brakes, Yuu subconsciously hangs up on her and love and desire for revenge tear apart her toy, Mitsuki, her wolf in a rabbit's mask, until she cuts her own strings and crumbles under the weight of the truth.

It's a bittersweet feeling, she has lost this game to someone like Yuu, but she has to admit, he played the game fair and square, he lied, he doubted, he accused, he failed and prosecuted and sacrificed. He told the truth, in the end.

It was an interesting game, she'll let him live, for now.

She calls her forensic pawns and tells orders the to return Hajime in one piece back to the hospital. She'll let him live too, because he was needed, if only on one side. She wonders how long two little rabbits can survive in the middle of a forest infested with wolves. They can run, they can hide, they could cower or fight, but everyone met the same fate at the end - everyone died.

She watches from hidden cameras and listens to the tales of her wolves, how the two little rabbits depend on each other. They constantly stay together, as if waiting for a wolf to gut and hang them at any moment. They were inseparable - they didn't doubt anymore, they trusted. Yuu trusted Hajime now, and she could tell that Hajime had grown fond of the naive boy. They bonded. Danger lurked at every corner for something so fragile. Dreams, relationships, hopes, all drowned in a sea of fear.

Two rabbits, trapped in a hole in the ground, surrounded by wolves and looking towards the sky they would never reach.

She smiles, bitter and detached.

Life was a cruel game, wasn't it?


End file.
